Moving From Victims To Healers

When a small group of artists and writers in Minnesota first developed the idea of the red life-sized figures now called Silent Witnesses in the summer of 1990, they never imagined that they were birthing what would some day become an international initiative. The project simply grew out of their powerless feelings and compassion for the women whose lives had been lost.

The Silent Witnesses started to take on a life of their own. People involved with the project came to experience the figures reverentially. The murdered women became real to them, their spirits touching them. When they carried them from trucks to exhibit spaces, they felt they were carrying their stories. When they "hugged" them in order to fit them into their stands, they were reminded of how much love each of them needed. They had come alive for them. But they were all dead. And that is the reason for this project.